Thursday, July 8, 2010

Life Worth Living

Balance. Moderation. Frivolity. Practicality. A friend of mine has stage 4 cancer and recently wrote an online journal entry regarding all of these. She was sharing a story about needing a dental crown and how her payment portion was in the neighborhood of $600. She told the dentist, and his techs, that she was simply not paying that to be buried. In other words, given that she has a 2% survival probability, that $600 for a crown could in theory simply end up in a casket. Morbid yes but absolutely practical. I wondered - faced with the same dilemma, could I be so practical and frugal? I couldn't actually answer that question.

Is it a question of practicality, frugality, balance or moderation? Moderation, she says, is basically blurring the lines. Moderation makes you feel like you are in control, when let's face it - we aren't. It's an illusion and it helps get us through the day. When you are face with stage 4 cancer, I would imagine that the control illusion goes absolutely out the window. Perhaps it makes us feel better to imagine that we live life in moderation when in truth, we fool ourselves into believing we are in control.

Then there's the whole issue of balance. There's the yin and yang of it all - the rain and the sun, the good and the bad, the laughter and the tears. Life is definitely an interesting balance of all of these, with a little moderation thrown in. Add to that a practical nature and a sprinkle of frugal thinking - you just might have a life worth living.

Life Worth Living

Balance. Moderation. Frivolity. Practicality. A friend of mine has stage 4 cancer and recently wrote an online journal entry regarding all of these. She was sharing a story about needing a dental crown and how her payment portion was in the neighborhood of $600. She told the dentist, and his techs, that she was simply not paying that to be buried. In other words, given that she has a 2% survival probability, that $600 for a crown could in theory simply end up in a casket. Morbid yes but absolutely practical. I wondered - faced with the same dilemma, could I be so practical and frugal? I couldn't actually answer that question.

Is it a question of practicality, frugality, balance or moderation? Moderation, she says, is basically blurring the lines. Moderation makes you feel like you are in control, when let's face it - we aren't. It's an illusion and it helps get us through the day. When you are face with stage 4 cancer, I would imagine that the control illusion goes absolutely out the window. Perhaps it makes us feel better to imagine that we live life in moderation when in truth, we fool ourselves into believing we are in control.

Then there's the whole issue of balance. There's the yin and yang of it all - the rain and the sun, the good and the bad, the laughter and the tears. Life is definitely an interesting balance of all of these, with a little moderation thrown in. Add to that a practical nature and a sprinkle of frugal thinking - you just might have a life worth living.